From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

I'm using two monitors on a Pi5, one 2500 x 1200 one 1920 x 1080.
There are white borders on the outside edges of each. Is there a
way to use all of both screens? The left border contains the
raspberry menu, so it isn't entirely wasted, but the right border
is blank. Am I right in thinking more video memory needs to be
allocated? If so, how?

Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!

bob prohaska

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 08/10/2026 04:57, [email protected] wrote:

I'm using two monitors on a Pi5, one 2500 x 1200 one 1920 x 1080.
There are white borders on the outside edges of each. Is there a
way to use all of both screens? The left border contains the
raspberry menu, so it isn't entirely wasted, but the right border
is blank. Am I right in thinking more video memory needs to be
allocated? If so, how?

Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!

I'm not quite following what you've got there. If the menu is in the
white border, its an active area of the screen, and not some
under-scanned area. Can you move windows in to the other white areas, or
do they stop at the edge?

If I had to guess, I'd say it was something to do with your desktop
backdrop image. Either it has white boarders, or its not being scaled to
the full screen size and there is white background around it.

---druck
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

druck <[email protected]> wrote:

On 08/10/2026 04:57, [email protected] wrote:

I'm using two monitors on a Pi5, one 2500 x 1200 one 1920 x 1080.
There are white borders on the outside edges of each. Is there a
way to use all of both screens? The left border contains the
raspberry menu, so it isn't entirely wasted, but the right border
is blank. Am I right in thinking more video memory needs to be
allocated? If so, how?

Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!

I'm not quite following what you've got there. If the menu is in the
white border, its an active area of the screen, and not some
under-scanned area. Can you move windows in to the other white areas, or
do they stop at the edge?

The Raspberry menus are in the left white border, the right white
border is vacant. Windows slid into either border cut off at the
border's edge. The mouse pointer tracks into either border as if it's
part of the desktop, only the windows are "fenced out".

If I had to guess, I'd say it was something to do with your desktop
backdrop image. Either it has white boarders, or its not being scaled to
the full screen size and there is white background around it.

The desktop layout under Appearance Settings has no image, just a
brownish tone. There is a "Picture" selection of "fisherman", but
that seems to be greyed out as if overridden by the "no image" selection.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 16/10/2026 18:34, [email protected] wrote:

druck <[email protected]> wrote:

On 08/10/2026 04:57, [email protected] wrote:

I'm using two monitors on a Pi5, one 2500 x 1200 one 1920 x 1080.
There are white borders on the outside edges of each. Is there a
way to use all of both screens? The left border contains the
raspberry menu, so it isn't entirely wasted, but the right border
is blank. Am I right in thinking more video memory needs to be
allocated? If so, how?

Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!

I'm not quite following what you've got there. If the menu is in the
white border, its an active area of the screen, and not some
under-scanned area. Can you move windows in to the other white areas, or
do they stop at the edge?

The Raspberry menus are in the left white border, the right white
border is vacant. Windows slid into either border cut off at the
border's edge. The mouse pointer tracks into either border as if it's
part of the desktop, only the windows are "fenced out".

Sounds like your window manager thinks the screen is a different size to
what it actually is.

bob prohaska

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

Adolf Hitler


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]d> wrote:

On 16/10/2026 18:34, [email protected] wrote:

druck <[email protected]> wrote:

On 08/10/2026 04:57, [email protected] wrote:

I'm using two monitors on a Pi5, one 2500 x 1200 one 1920 x 1080.
There are white borders on the outside edges of each. Is there a
way to use all of both screens? The left border contains the
raspberry menu, so it isn't entirely wasted, but the right border
is blank. Am I right in thinking more video memory needs to be
allocated? If so, how?

Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!

I'm not quite following what you've got there. If the menu is in the
white border, its an active area of the screen, and not some
under-scanned area. Can you move windows in to the other white areas, or >>> do they stop at the edge?

The Raspberry menus are in the left white border, the right white
border is vacant. Windows slid into either border cut off at the
border's edge. The mouse pointer tracks into either border as if it's
part of the desktop, only the windows are "fenced out".

Sounds like your window manager thinks the screen is a different size to what it actually is.

That's what I was thinking, put more clearly than I did.....

However, I just noticed that running a youTube video on the left
monitor allows the usable screen to fill in the border where the
raspberry menu resides.

If I move a chromium window to the right monitor, where the empty
border is on the right, putting YouTube into full-screen mode allows
the display to take over the screen all the way to the physical edge.

So, it appears the "desktop" is smaller than the physical monitor space available.

Aha! Preferences > Settings > Defaults > Set Defaults
for "Large Screens" seems to have done the trick. No
more white borders. I thought that it referred to preset
factory defaults, but it looks like the process is
adaptive to the monitors actually connected.

Thanks for humoring my naive questions!

bob prohaska

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 17/10/2026 05:23, [email protected] wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <[email protected]d> wrote:

On 16/10/2026 18:34, [email protected] wrote:

druck <[email protected]> wrote:

On 08/10/2026 04:57, [email protected] wrote:

I'm using two monitors on a Pi5, one 2500 x 1200 one 1920 x 1080.
There are white borders on the outside edges of each. Is there a
way to use all of both screens? The left border contains the
raspberry menu, so it isn't entirely wasted, but the right border
is blank. Am I right in thinking more video memory needs to be
allocated? If so, how?

Thanks for reading, any guidance appreciated!

I'm not quite following what you've got there. If the menu is in the
white border, its an active area of the screen, and not some
under-scanned area. Can you move windows in to the other white areas, or >>>> do they stop at the edge?

The Raspberry menus are in the left white border, the right white
border is vacant. Windows slid into either border cut off at the
border's edge. The mouse pointer tracks into either border as if it's
part of the desktop, only the windows are "fenced out".

Sounds like your window manager thinks the screen is a different size to
what it actually is.

That's what I was thinking, put more clearly than I did.....

However, I just noticed that running a youTube video on the left
monitor allows the usable screen to fill in the border where the
raspberry menu resides.

If I move a chromium window to the right monitor, where the empty
border is on the right, putting YouTube into full-screen mode allows
the display to take over the screen all the way to the physical edge.

So, it appears the "desktop" is smaller than the physical monitor space available.

Aha! Preferences > Settings > Defaults > Set Defaults
for "Large Screens" seems to have done the trick. No
more white borders. I thought that it referred to preset
factory defaults, but it looks like the process is
adaptive to the monitors actually connected.

Thanks for humoring my naive questions!

Hardly naïve. Most of us are probably running 1920 x 1048 screens and
simply don't run into issues such as you have.

bob prohaska

--
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the
urge to rule it.”
– H. L. Mencken

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